


A Four-person Snowband

by rhyfel



Series: Julie and the Future [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Snow Angels, Snow fun in general, Snowmen, Tour Bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyfel/pseuds/rhyfel
Summary: “Reg,” Julie started, pulling his attention away from the window, “have you ever been to the snow?”Reggie had never experienced snow before he died. A quick stop while on tour fixes that.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Julie Molina & Reggie
Series: Julie and the Future [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990222
Comments: 7
Kudos: 131





	A Four-person Snowband

Julie doesn’t really have a conventional tour bus. Which makes sense because Julie doesn’t really have a conventional band. Admittedly, this is the first _real_ tour she’s been on, so she can’t be sure if this is normal. The last few “tours” were just her and Flynn hopping in a car and hitting venues up and down the coast during the summer with the guys poofing in and out of the backseat whenever they spotted something interesting. Still, despite her less than normal experiences with bands, tours, and gigs in general, she was pretty sure most tour buses didn’t have a junk bunk that was impossible to reach because the lead singer of the touring band blocked it off so her ghost bandmates could have a place to relax.

Like 95% sure.

Nera the sound tech and Lark the light designer both avoided the bunk as much as possible which didn’t surprise Julie at all. She suspected that they suspected that the guys were ghosts. And she also suspected that they suspected that _she_ suspected that _they_ suspected. And around and around in circles. But they kept the rest of the touring crew away from that bed, letting the guys rest there in relative peace so Julie wasn’t going to confront them if they didn’t want to address the elephant in the room. Or the three ghosts.

Right now, Luke was using it. They’d passed an old run-down theater a few towns back and he’d been trying to write a song about it ever since. That meant he’d been in the bunk for hours, since he couldn’t write where anyone could see the pen moving. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but Alex had been popping into bunk alley every couple of minutes for the past hour and Julie could tell he needed to shut out the rest of the world for a while. So the next time he popped in, she rolled out of her bunk and nudged him inside, walking away before he could protest. Reggie was the only other person in the lounge, which wasn’t surprising; they’d had a late show last night and everyone else was probably still asleep. What was surprising is how he didn’t look over to her when she walked in. She’d sort of assumed Alex had been desperate to flee an overexcited Reggie who wouldn’t shut up. Instead, she found him sitting quietly, staring out the window.

“See anything interesting?” Julie asked as she sat on the couch next to him.

“Sometimes I think about all of the things I never got to do before I died,” he replied, finally looking at her and giving a wan smile before continuing, “and sometimes I get so focused on the big things like missing out on fame and fortune and my family that I forget about the smaller things.” Reggie looked out the window again, “I’m not sure which things make me sadder.”

Julie didn’t know what to say, so she just curled her hand over his, squeezing tightly to remind him he still had her. He flashed her a slightly wider – but still bittersweet – smile, and kept his eyes focused out the window. Julie joined him in watching the landscape pass by, letting the silence speak. The hills and fields they were passing were covered in snow and the trees were grey and barren, giving the whole place a cold, desolate feeling. She could understand why Reggie had been thinking about his death.

They sat there, watching the snow and ice pass by, and Julie thought about how glad she was that Sam, their touring manager, had convinced her to buy wool socks and a good pair of gloves. It certainly looked colder than anything she’d experienced in the past several years and none of her regular clothes would have been warm enough.

And then it hit her.

“Reg,” she started, pulling his attention away from the window, “have you ever been to the snow?” His smile became more bitter than sweet.

“I’m sure my parents took me when I was younger and they still… But I don’t remember it. What about you?”

“We used to go every couple of winters. We didn’t ski or anything, just got a hotel room or rented a cabin and sledded and ice skated and had snowball fights for a few days before heading back home. After my mom died, we just… stopped.” Julie thought about the first winter after she died, the way the family barely had a Christmas. The second winter the guys were there and they’d been too busy to think about going to the snow. And after that she just hadn’t cared, she’d always been more of a warm weather person. Reggie, however, looked wistful at her retelling.

“I have an idea!” Julie said, jumping up from the chair and heading towards the bus driver. “Carl! Do you think you could pull over somewhere so I could play in the snow for, like, thirty minutes?” Julie heard Reggie sputtering behind her, trying to get her to stop. “Sam says we’re a few hours ahead of schedule and LA doesn’t get snow so…” She trailed off meaningfully. Carl, a nice older man who loved showing her pictures of his grandkids and calling avocados “avahkhatoes,” glanced over at her. For a few seconds, she thought he would say no, but then he smiled and nodded. “Alright, next place I see I’ll pull over.” She squealed and said thank you before hurrying to the back of the bus for her boots and gloves, pulling Reggie along behind her.

* * *

They stopped about twenty minutes later at a deserted rest area. Julie and Reggie hopped off the bus and immediately headed towards the area with the best-looking snow. Julie started pulling it towards her, trying to build a snowman, while Reggie fell dramatically backwards and began making snow angels.

Julie giggled to herself as she watched him out of the corner of her eye. He’d fall into the snow, wiggle and flail like a turtle who’d gotten knocked over, then clamber up, ruining whatever he’d managed to make in the first place. But he kept trying, finally figuring out the best way to make a snow angel on his third attempt. On his fifth, he’d realized he could just poof in and out, leaving a perfect imprint of an angel. Julie decided they should probably keep Alex away from the snow so he didn’t have an anxiety attack thinking about how they could have footprints in the snow if they didn’t have any weight.

Julie was just finishing up her snowman when Reggie wandered over, clearly done with his snow angels. It was short, the body looked nothing like the perfect spheres snowmen always had in media, and the stick arms were tiny and uneven, but she was proud of it anyway.

“Looks great, Julie!” Reggie said, slinging an arm around her shoulder. “But it’s not quite finished.”

He pulled the beanie she’d been wearing off her head and put it on the snowman in one smooth motion, then ducked behind it and said, “ _It’s about the music_!” in a surprisingly good imitation of Luke. Julie laughed as Reggie continued, “I love my guitar more than anything in the world. We're gonna be legends! Sleeves are my nemesis! Nemeses? Nemesises?” Finally, Julie lost it, collapsing on the ground in giggles. Reggie peaked back around the snowman at her, a smile wide on his face.

“Let’s do Alex next.”

They spent the next five minutes making another snowman. With the two of them, it went a lot better. It was a little taller than the snow-Luke, sturdier, and Reggie was able to poof around to get more sticks and rocks for the arms and face. Right as they were putting the final touch, a black snapback, on the snow-Alex, they heard, “Why’s the bus stopped?” from behind them. Slowly the two turned, edging closer to each other to hide their snow bandmates from their real bandmate. Alex took one look at their faces and poofed behind them, getting a better view of their creations. He looked down at the two snowmen, looked up at Reggie and Julie, grinned, and said “Be right back.” Within a minute he was back with a flannel shirt, some butterfly clips, and a confused looking Luke. “Gotta have the rest of the snow-band,” Alex said, holding his supplies in the air as Luke started smiling once he realized what was happening, “You can’t leave snow-me alone with him.” He finished, gesturing at the snow-Luke. The real Luke shoved him and grabbed the flannel out of his hand.

“Julie, come help me make snow-Reggie!” Luke shouted, running next to the snow-Alex and dropping to the ground where he began shoveling snow towards him like an overexcited Labrador. Julie laughed and joined in, leaving Reggie and Alex to work on the snow-her.

Luke was better at making snowmen then either her or Reggie and with his help, they finally got the body to actually sort of look like the snowmen Julie saw in tv shows and movies.

“You’re really good at this!” she said, watching him finish rolling the head for their snow-Reggie.

“Thanks!” he replied, “we used to go to skiing and I’d always make a snowman with my parents on the last day of the trip.” Luke paused, staring down at the ball of snow. Julie wondered if he was thinking about those trips, or why they stopped, or something else entirely.

“So, how’re we gonna use the flannel?” Julie said, pulling Luke from his thoughts. “Should he wear it or should we tie it around his waist? Or maybe around his neck?” Luke looked up at her, the small frown clearing from his face as a more comically horrified look overtook it.

“We can’t put it around his neck, Jules! Do you want to make snow-Reggie preppy?” Luke said aghast.

“I trusted you, Julie!” Reggie shouted over from where he and Alex had been working on the snow-Julie. “You can’t make snow-me a prep!”

Julie laughed and just started putting the flannel on the snowman, trying to get the sticks in the sleeves while Luke carefully stacked the head. The snowmen were all only about two feet tall, which meant the shirt looked more like a robe on the snow-Reggie, and the sticks didn’t actually come out of the sleeves, but she loved it. Luke poofed off to find some rocks as Reggie came over.

“We’re done with snow-you!” he said, pulling her away from the snow-Reggie. “Come look at her.” As they headed over, Alex moved away and started digging into the snow at the feet of the snow-band. Julie tried to get a look at what he was doing, but Reggie just kept pulling her along.

The snow-Julie was about the same height at the snow-Luke, but Alex clearly had some snowman building skills, since it was better than either attempt she and Reggie made. The butterfly clips were shoved into the snow at the top of her head and they’d done one stick arm up and the other pointed down, like she was waving.

“It’s great,” Julie cheered, “But why is there a bunch of grass at my feet?” Julie pointed to the long blades of prairie grass that had probably been ripped out of a hill in California and poofed in.

“Reggie wanted to give you hair!” Alex shouted from where he was still digging into the snow. Reggie nodded enthusiastically. “It looked terrible!” Julie laughed and pulled Reggie away from the snow-Julie so they could finally get a look at what Alex was working on. Luke, who’d just finished snow-Reggie’s face came over to join them as Alex stood up. There on the ground, right in front of the snow-band, were the words “Julie and the Phantoms.”

Julie stood there, Reggie and Alex on one side of her, Luke on the other, staring at the four snowpeople they’d made as a band. She pulled out her phone to take a picture and then had an idea.

“Hey, guys, let’s sing the Stand Tall chorus real quick, I wanna get a picture of all of us.” The four of them quickly began singing as Julie switched to selfie mode and took a photo. As soon as she was done, the three of them stopped singing to crowd around her and look at it. She managed to get all of the snow-band, the three guys behind them looking goofy, and herself, but Alex’s writing was cut off. It was perfect anyway. She knew who they were.

“Julie, it’s been thirty minutes, you ready to go?” Carl called, poking his head out of the bus door and looking back to where they had been playing. Julie looked up and gave him a wave. “Yeah, I’ll be right there, I just need to grab my stuff.” She gestured at the snow-band and their things. He gave a thumbs up and ducked back into the bus. She took one last photo, just of the four snowpeople and the writing. Then the four of them began grabbing their hats, hair clips, and shirt and heading back to the bus. Luke and Alex got on first, talking about Luke’s new song ideas, but Reggie grabbed her arm before she could get to the bus door

“Thanks, Julie.” He said, smiling widely at her.

Julie smiled back and said, “Of course. I couldn’t have done it without you.” She gave his hand a squeeze and got on the bus, pulling out her phone to post the picture she took of the snow-band to their socials with the caption “Tell your friends ;)”. When she was done, she pulled up the selfie and smiled. She really _couldn’t_ have done it without them.

Any of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me at https://rhyming-fellowship.tumblr.com. I might put up my doodle of the four snowpeople!
> 
> Also, look at me writing fluff. Good job me.
> 
> As always, unbeta'd.


End file.
